Celia and David Rudland
Celia and David are bee farmers running around 250 hives, producing honey, wax and docile bees for sale. David was a Seasonal Bee Inspector for nine years and Celia was a teacher and they now use this knowledge to teach beekeeping at many levels.
They will be presenting “The Inspector Calls”. A light hearted but informative look at nine years of experience as a Seasonal Bee Inspector in the South East.
Richard Ridler
Richard has been the Chair of the Charity Bees Abroad since 2015. He is a Master Beekeeper and past Chair of the Essex Beekeepers’ Association.
He will show a short film about the work of Bees Abroad in Sierra Leone which shows how beekeeping is such an effective and sustainable way of changing the lives of those in the most disadvantaged rural communities in Africa.
He will share his experiences and knowledge of beekeeping in Uganda and draw comparisons with our very different beekeeping practices here in UK; followed by a question and answer session with both Richard and Jane on their African experiences with beekeeping projects.
Jane Ridler
Jane’s first degree is in Zoology, and she is also a Master Beekeeper. She has recently retired as Chair at Essex BKA and returned to the role of County Education Officer.
Jane’s presentation will focus on Drone Laying Queens and Laying Workers. We’ll look at the fascinating complexity which is the social honeybee colony, and leads to the problems of DLQs and LWs, as well as looking at identification and such practical solutions that there are.
Are you contemplating taking the Basic Assessment next season? Being assessors at BBKA shows us that the DLQ/LW topic to be just about the least well-known aspect of the BA syllabus!
Kevin Thorn
Kevin is a beefarmer running 100 colonies plus nucs in and around Sudbury in Suffolk. He breeds his own locally adapted bees using drone flooding. He and his wife Julie wholesale honey across East Anglia and beeswax cosmetics to beekeepers across the UK.
Kevin also runs the Abberton native bee group at Abberton reservoir in Essex working to reintroduce the native British honey bee to the area and in his presentation he will be talking about that experience.
Kevin is Chair of West Suffolk and Suffolk Beekeepers.
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